Friday, November 11, 2005

Europeans descended from Hunters, not Farmers, new study reveals

A study by anthropologist Joachim Burger of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, in Mainz, Germany, based on DNA evidence has come to the conclusion that Europeans owe their ancestry mainly to Stone Age hunters, and not to migrants who brought farming to Europe from the Middle East. The immigrant farmers left a cultural legacy by introducing agriculture some 7,500 years ago, the researchers say. The findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Science.